


Vicious Cycle

by Teethteethteethteethteethteethteeth



Series: Hyper Thrust Pride Week 2020 [2]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hyper Thrust Pride Week, Hyper Thrust Pride Week 2020, Implied Character Death, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teethteethteethteethteethteethteeth/pseuds/Teethteethteethteethteethteethteeth
Summary: Why Fun Ghoul doesn’t drink.
Relationships: Fun Ghoul & Jet Star & Kobra Kid & Party Poison (Danger Days)
Series: Hyper Thrust Pride Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778950
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Vicious Cycle

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhh this one’s pretty heavy!! Please stay safe and read the warnings right below!  
> Warnings: vehicle crashes, impaired driving, child death, general death, alcoholism, implied underage drinking, uhh friendly kidnapping???, vomiting and other delightful detox symptoms  
> Thanx to alcoholrehabguide.org for medical research stuff :)

Technically, the traffic light is blaring red when the car crashes through the light pole. But with the rain and the dark and all the other streetlights reflecting off the once-shiny buildings, mingling with the red stoplight, they remember it most as orange. The color’s overbearing in their mind, shining down on the shower of broken glass around their body like a halo. The child who will be Fun Ghoul is silent as a distant siren announces the crash. Medical ‘droids will arrive soon, but for these ten-odd minutes, all is quiet. The baby’s cries had quieted, then stopped not long after the crash, but the child in the passenger seat does not register their sibling’s passing as the tragedy it is. Their thoughts can hardly be considered thoughts, distorted as they are by pain and concussive shock alike. Their head faces towards what used to be the driver’s seat, and if they could have a coherent thought, it would be the desire to look away. When the ‘droids come, the body in the front seat will be classified as: “Male, deceased. Body unfit for Draculoidization, blood alcohol content dangerously high. To be disposed of”. But to the child in the passenger seat, the body was their father. Baba, they used to call him, before they turned eight and he said they were too old for such nicknames. If they could speak now, they’d call for ‘father’. He wouldn’t answer— the lightpost had gone straight through his skull, destroying his head entirely. Later on, in moments of anger, Fun Ghoul will wish he had had a slower, more painful death. But right now, the ‘droids have arrived, and the child is being cut out of the remains of the car, rushed off to the medical center. 

The moon hangs low and heavy in the sky the night the child— older now, but still a child— escapes into the desert. It’s orange in the haze of chemicals put out by the city, orange in the dust kicked up by the desert wind. They don’t think of that night, then, too focused on survival to remember that which plagued them most nights. That night, they add to the orange of the sky with fire that burns up their old life so completely there’s nothing left but ashes. The irony isn’t lost on them that they start the fire with rags stuffed in bottles of alcohol. 

And they’re safe in the desert, or safer than they had been when fleeing for their life, at least. They’re lying in the dunes where they’d fallen from exhaustion, trembling with fear and energy and elation. They’d made it, and they feel on top of the world. So when they rummage through their singed bag of supplies and come up with a leftover bottle of liquor, they shrug away the whispers of misgivings. They spend the rest of the night pleasantly tipsy, and nothing of note happens. Really, they wonder, why did they make such a big deal about it in their head?

And so time passes. Fun Ghoul becomes Fun Ghoul. Demolition expert extraordinaire, and a regular at the bars dotting the Zones. Most everyone out in the desert enjoys a few too many a bit too often, so nobody bats an eye if the guy in the back passes out on the table six nights a week. And Fun Ghoul never saw it coming, never took notice of their descent into alcoholism until it was too late. Most nights remind them of the night their family died, and so they have a drink to feel emotions other than fear, regret, and anger. And the drink just amplifies their memories of their father— not just that night, but most every night of their life— and Fun Ghoul sees themself in him. And so they have another, to push the bad thoughts away. They hold a deep brown bottle up to block the bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and the light shines through the glass, staining it deep orange. They wince, and stumble away from their seat, bottle slipping from their hands and shattering, sticky, on the floor. 

Outside, the night air is cool, and Fun Ghoul can feel their blood rushing fast and hit beneath their skin. When they trip in the thick drifts of sand, they don’t try to get up, allowing the wind to half-cover them, and they sleep, eyes closed to the orange of the sunrise. 

A shape crashes down into the sand beside Fun Ghoul, startling them awake. Head still fuzzy from last night, they try to stand and run, and only succeed in falling again. The figure beside them cocks their head, confused, and waves enthusiastically at them.   
“Oh, uh, hi?” Fun Ghoul is not known for their eloquence, and even less so when they’re hungover. They squint at the person lying in the sand. They’re tall, even lying down, Ghoul can tell that much, and their bright red jacket hurts Ghoul’s eyes to look at. The stranger’s own eyes are hidden behind black plastic sunglasses. Currently, they’re raising their hands up to block the sun further, making shapes with the silhouettes of their hands. Fun Ghoul closes their eyes again, too tired to bother with the stranger, who clearly has better things to do than talk to Ghoul anyways. Like make shadow puppets or whatever. 

When Fun Ghoul wakes up again, the stranger is gone, and the sun is high in the sky. Probing their face with a finger, they wince when their sunburn makes itself apparent. Not wanting to spend more time in the damaging rays of the sun, they shuffle back into the bar for the next round of drinks.

Six months later, and Fun Ghoul’s living large. Enough demo jobs for various crews, and they’ve got the carbons to burn on a repurposed exterminators’ car. They paint over the glaring white with scarlet flames. But the paint soon fades to dull orange in the brutal desert sun. Ghoul doesn’t notice, and if they did, they wouldn’t care. Memories from the City, memories of the crash are now reserved solely for the Fun Ghoul who spends each night in the backs of various bars, or camped out in the desert with a supply of bottles, condensation long since evaporated. Ghoul’s a different person in the daytime than at night; one an enthusiastic rebel with a passion for setting fires and building explosives, the other a mess, crying quietly into their hands under the booth they’d claimed as theirs for the night. Each morning, though, they shove last nights emotions away, force their shaking hands still, and assume the persona of someone who’s got their shit together. To reiterate, Fun Ghoul’s living large. 

And gradually, they slip further. They drop their daytime face entirely, stop delivering on orders of explosives. They make more mistakes on those they do complete, and blow off a few fingertips in the process. They get thrown out of more bars than they’re still allowed into, for various brawls, and for failing to pay up at the end of the night. For a few days, gossip circulates about Fun Ghoul’s fall from grace, but in the end, they’re just another washed-up nobody, and there’s too many of their type out in the desert for anyone to care. 

Most of their peers end up dead in a dune somewhere, victim of a Drac patrol, the elements, or their own desperation for one more bottle. The Witch has other plans for Fun Ghoul, though. And those plans involve hitting rock bottom in the form of drunkenly driving straight off a cliff in the middle of the night. 

By some miracle, the car neither catches fire nor explodes (though it would be a fitting ending, Fun Ghoul realizes later). The front of the car does crumple inwards, trapping Ghoul in their seat. A rusted chunk of metal from the ancient guardrail impales the windshield not six inches from Fun Ghoul’s face, and they realize just how close they came to dying their father’s death. And they realize how they’ve only lived their father’s life, convincing themself it was their own. After reaching such a profound level of self-awareness as they’ve never felt before, Fun Ghoul passes out from pain and a minor concussion. 

They’re not expecting to wake up, and they’re certainly not expecting to wake up with the face of the stranger from the dunes staring them in the eyes. They startle, and the stranger startled as well, tripping backwards and barely catching themself on the mangled car door. At the same time, a voice calls,  
“Hey, don’t fuckin’ move. If you sever your own damn spinal cord or whatever, all our hard work savin’ ya goes to waste.” The kid in the sunglasses flips off someone in the general area behind Ghoul.   
“Fine, all Kobra’s hard work goes to waste.” Ghoul hears footsteps, and a second person strolls into view to stand beside the first. Where the kid in the sunglasses is all height and angles, they’re shorter than Ghoul and only look smaller next to their companion.   
“This here’s the Kobra Kid, I’m Party Poison, and you’re that failed demo guy Von Goo or something stupid like that. We’re workin’ real hard to save your fucked-up hide so you can make us some bombs that work on Exterminator and S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/ armor.”  
“Ah, piss off an’ let me die.” The Kobra Kid salutes them and dramatically turns to go, but Party Poison hauls them back by the jacket sleeve, muttering about their smartass brother and their stupid jokes. In about an hour’s time, the Kobra Kid’s successfully cut away the metal pinning Ghoul in place, and they enlist Poison’s help in dragging Ghoul out of the car and laying them in the sand. 

Some intensive first aid later, and Fun Ghoul is shoved in the backseat of the others’ car against their will and the three of them drive off through to Zone Four. Ghoul watches the two interact— mostly bickering, it seems, Party Poison taking their eyes off the road dangerously often to see the Kobra Kid talking with their hands. Occasionally one of them will address Ghoul, Poison interpreting for Kobra when necessary. Ghoul doesn’t respond. When the car pulls up outside an abandoned diner, Ghoul readies themself to run, and plows through the Kobra Kid when they open the backseat door to pull Ghoul out. But Party Poison isn’t far behind, and is sturdier than their height suggests, and Ghoul isn’t in any shape to fight back. So they struggle weakly in Poison’s arms as they’re dragged through the door of the diner.

The two of them lay Fun Ghoul down on a table in what used to be the dining room. The Kobra Kid sets a bottle of water down beside them, and then they and Poison leave them, heading back outside, Ghoul stuck on the table cursing at them as they go. 

It’s well into the night by the time anyone returns to the diner. Someone shuffles in, whistling cheerfully. In the poor lighting, Fun Ghoul can only tell they’re even taller than the Kobra Kid, a hulking figure hauling several crates of supplies into the room. Still whistling as they unload the supplies, they haven’t seen Ghoul yet. Ghoul could probably stay still and hide until they leave, but instead they grab the still-unopened bottle of water and heave it at the back of the figure’s head. The person catches it reflexively, frowns in surprise at the bottle in their hand.   
“Aw, Kobra, you’ve got to quit thr—“ They are Fun Ghoul. “Hey, what the hell?” Raising their voice to a shout, they address the diner at large, “Poison! Kobra! Get your asses down here and explain why in the goddamn hell you’ve got some half-dead kid on the table here!” Ghoul waves at them apathetically, and soon the other two come bursting in through doors on opposite sides of the diner.   
“Jet I can e—“  
“Damn right you better explain. I- who even is this?”  
“‘M Fun Ghoul. These two kidnapped me. Nice to meet ya I guess.”  
“Okay, kidnapped?”  
The Kobra Kid signs something, and the guy— Jet?— looks even more flabbergasted.   
“What the fuck. You fucking find a guy in a wreck and snatch him up to make bombs for us, correct?” They both nod.   
“Have you ever had a coherent thought in your combined lives?” The Kobra Kid grins and shakes their head, and Jet sighs. Giving up on their lecture, they turn to Ghoul.   
“Sorry about these two. I honestly can’t explain why they thought any of this was a good idea. I figure you want to get the hell out of here—“  
“Damn right I do!”  
“—but you’re very clearly in no shape to do so. If you stay a while I’ll keep those two off your case? I’m Jet Star, by the way, he/him pronouns right now.”  
“Like I said, I’m Fun Ghoul. They/them.”

In the following hours, Jet Star does his best to keep true to his word, but the Venom Brothers are seemingly determined to annoy the hell out of Fun Ghoul, the Kobra Kid especially so. They don’t mind so much, though, once the detox sets in. Kobra’s surprised, but helpful when Ghoul starts panicking. Their demeanor changes entirely from teasing to calm as he realizes Ghoul’s going through withdrawal— faster than Ghoul understands what’s happening. 

It should be humiliating, Ghoul thinks, to be so wretched and vulnerable in front of a stranger, moreso because they brought this down on themself, but between the tremors and the vomiting and the overbearing anxiety, they can’t bring themself to care. Sometime on the third day, they find themself babbling their life story to Party Poison (when had he taken over from Kobra?), and they’re surprised when Poison just nods and wraps another blanket over their shoulders. In the short and disorienting time they’d known Poison, they’d gotten the impression that Poison was neither the quiet nor the understanding type. And yet.

It’s a week later when Fun Ghoul reaches the tail end of the process, and it’s another half week when they’re done completely. By then, the rhythm in the diner has adjusted to one more person, and Fun Ghoul feels at home. It’s Jet who asks Ghoul to stay, but Poison and Kobra stand beside em, anticipation written on their faces just as much as Jet’s. Ghoul grins, and accepts.

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s Hyper Thrust Pride Week day 3! Yesterday’s piece was art, you can find it on tumblr along with more Killjoy content @wishiwasthemoon-tonight !!  
> Also, I just want to make it clear, I didn’t really delve into what happens next, but I might come back to it. I don’t want to make it seem like addiction’s easy to manage once you get sober for the first time ever, because it’s not.


End file.
